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Sen. Amy Klobuchar had an answer ready for local journalists who asked her this week about the fiasco in a human trafficking bill that held up the confirmation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch because of an abortion provision.

"No one is really looking back at the past," she said when asked about a mistake in her office that allowed the abortion provision into the bill.

Of course, someone's always looking at the past in politics and in this story, it's Politico, which this week provided a behind-the-scenes look at the snafu,  for which Klobuchar said she took full responsibility while blaming the mistake on a staffer.

, is a move "that's generally frowned upon in the Senate." It's not the first time the senator has blamed a staff member for a problem, however.

But  it worked. Yesterday morning, a smiling Klobuchar was on the front page of the Star Tribune, the story framed as a breakthrough for bipartisanship.

"We've been able to work across the aisle," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a quote emblazoned above the Klobuchar article. He was the lead GOP negotiator in unwinding the impasse.

Compare that quote to the one in Politico.

According to Politico, Senate leaders in Klobuchar's own party pushed her aside, worried that having made the blunder, she was in too big a hurry to make it go away.

she was responsible for breaking the logjam

, the result of an epiphany she had while driving in a Moorhead corn field.

Asked about the tension by Politico, Klobuchar dropped the same line she did for the local media.  "Nobody is really talking about that today. We’re talking about how we move forward.”

Klobuchar's office this week said the aide who made the mistake still works for the senator.

With a memoir soon to be published, and rumors that she has higher aspirations, Klobuchar's challenge on a national stage will be to find a better answer.

"We're not talking about that today" is blood in the water for the national political media.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

Sen. Amy Klobuchar had an answer ready for local journalists who asked her this week about the fiasco in a human trafficking bill that held up the confirmation of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch because of an abortion provision.


Politico offers less-flattering look at Klobuchar

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